Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS 173
ing much in their mute hmguage of grief and desolation,
find this is all prohibited now in Spring Grove Cemetery.
We went to see Hoft'ner's tomb, built by him some sixty-
five years ago. I remember well the beauty of its polished
marble columns and statuary when it was new. These columns
form into an arch above a statue of Flora, the goddess
of flowers, and through all the long years the graceful figure
has stood under this canopy with her apron full of flowers.
The bud which had fallen to the ground was in memory of an
adopted daughter of the Hoffners who had passed away in the
springtime of life and lay beneath the figure of Flora. The
recumbent lions at the entrance of the Hoffner tomb had been
"restored," for the action of fifty winter? had changed the
smooth surface of the marble and great cracks had been made
in their unconscious figures. It gave me another pang to
note that the beautiful polished marble of Italy had been re-
paired by laying on cement in the depressions and cracks.
There were no descendants to keep up the beauty of those
arts so loved by the ones who rested in this conspicuous tomb.
Many of our old neighbors and schoolmates lie buried in
Spring Grove. Familiar names — McCash, Van Zandt and
others — are inscribed there, and the dates on the stones tell
us the days of our youth are far away. We pass along and
find vines running in tangled masses over many a memorial
stone; we step out and away, and youth and all its interests
are but memories, like the marbles that glint in beautiful Spring
Grove Cemetery.
I